Eventually, North Korea will come out for dialogue. Even though we may hold dialogue at the end, if the provocations are prolonged, then the compensa… - Kim Dae-jung

In an era of a global economy, we can't survive without foreign investment. We must change our attitude toward foreign investment. We should welcome it.

For human rights issues, I think the intervention or support from the outside world is important. But also the effort and sacrifice, or willingness to make sacrifices within, among the people of a nation is important. The Korean democracy -- we had a few decades of sacrifices and tens of people lost their lives because of this concept and hundreds of people were imprisoned because of this concept and we finally gained it. And also the support from the democratic-minded peoples and democratic countries was very important. Of course the prime example of that nation is the United States.

In China and Korea, feudalism was brought down and replaced with counties and prefectures before the birth of Christ, and civil service exams to recruit government officials are a thousand years-old. The exercise of power by the king and high officials were monitored by robust systems of auditing. In sum, Asia was rich in the intellectual and institutional traditions that would provide fertile grounds for democracy. What Asia did not have was the organizations of representative democracy. The genius of the west was to create the organizations, a remarkable accomplishment that has greatly advanced the history of humankind.